No. 10 Montana Tech men’s basketball surges past Rocky

Since No. 10 Montana Tech fell to Providence on Jan. 20, it has rattled off seven consecutive victories by an average margin of 25 points per game.

It continued in a big way on Thursday evening as the Orediggers (21-4, 11-1 Frontier) completed a season sweep of Rocky Mountain College with a 92-61 win.

Seven straight wins is no easy task in the Frontier, and it was their lone conference defeat that sparked the red-hot Diggers.

“That first practice back after that game, really just brought a lot of dog out in our team,” Tech junior guard Camdyn LaRance said.

“Ever since that loss, we’ve been going as hard as we can every day.”

Tech was 14-3 prior to its loss against Providence, but the team wasn’t necessarily playing to its full potential.

While it had been finding ways to win, the defeat served as somewhat of a wakeup call for a team with lofty expectations.

“A win gives you blind spots. We were winning games until that point, but we had a lot of blind spots in terms of what was keeping us from reaching our ceiling and really progressing as a team,” Tech head coach Adam Hiatt said.

“It’s just been a change of approach from a decision making standpoint. Mostly our seniors have really bought in to the concept of the sum of our parts is greater than the individual parts.”

Defense has been a key aspect to the Diggers’ winning streak, which was on full display on Thursday as they held Rocky to 36.1% shooting.

Over the course of the seven-game run, no team has scored more than 66 points against Tech. In three of those games, the opposition didn’t eclipse 57 points.

It’s been a refocused defensive attitude for the Diggers, as they have let their defense dictate their offense, as opposed to the other way around.

“When we buy in – all five of us on the floor together – there’s not a lot of teams that can put up a lot of points on us if we’re all flying around and giving everything we have,” LaRance said.

“There were some times early on in the season where we were all in our own head, trying to get our offensive game going, letting it affect our defense.”

Along with a stout defense, Tech flexed its depth in the win over Rocky.

In the first half when it needed a run, two-sport athlete Levi Torgerson was there off the bench, scoring eight points in the closing minutes.

Then in the second half, it was LaRance who came off the bench to provide a needed spark.

The Missoula native scored 13 of his season-high 15 points in the second half, nailing three shots from beyond the arc. LaRance shot a perfect 6-6 from the field against Rocky.

On any given night, the Diggers have an array of players that can step up.

“That’s the secret sauce to our success,” Hiatt said of Tech’s depth. “We have a lot of guys that sacrifice a lot in this program.”

Asa Williams led Tech offensively on Thursday with 18 points, including four makes from long range. Hayden Diekhans scored 12 points and hauled in six rebounds.

For Rocky, Kael Robinson scored a game-high 26 points.

The Diggers will look to carry their momentum through the rest of the season to secure a third consecutive Frontier regular season title.

It’s a tall task with three conference games remaining, but they are a team playing with plenty of confidence.

Tech has rediscovered playing with joy, shedding the pressure that comes with sky high expectations after a pair of historic seasons.

“I really think that to start the season, there was a sense that we have so much coming back and there’s such high external expectations, that we were just afraid to fail,” Hiatt said.

“Once we failed a couple of times, it just kind of lifted that burden and now we can just go out and enjoy the game and enjoy the process.”

Those failures, namely the loss to Providence nearly a month ago, have gone a long way for Tech.

With a win against Carroll on Saturday afternoon, the Diggers would secure a share of the regular season title for the third year in a row.